If you’ve just got yourself a new Mac and totally clueless what to install, this article is for you. If you are looking for alternatives for some applications you are currently using in your Mac, the following list might come in handy too. This week, we’d like to showcase you a list of useful yet free applications you can install for your Mac. Full list after jump.
Productivity
Anxiety
Provides a streamlined, easily accessible interface to add and check off your tasks, while remaining poised to melt into the background at a moments notice.
Appointments
Keep record of customers, contact persons and important events related to them.
BackBoard
A Mac app to collect notes and tasks.
Camouflage
Hides all the icons and leaves nothing but the pure wallpaper
Evernote
Easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.
EventSync
Allows you to sync your Facebook events with iCal.
HimmelBar
HimmelBar provides an icon in the menu bar to quickly access your installed applications by scanning standard locations such as local, user, network and developer applications.
IClockr
Simple way to track your time.
MindNode
Simple-to-use mindmapping applications for the Macintosh that help to visually collect, classify and structure ideas as well as organize, study and solve problems.
NameChanger
Designed for the sole purpose of renaming a list of files.
Namely
Fast way to open applications.
Punakea
Allows you to tag your files and bookmarks, freeing you of the strict hierarchy of the Finder’s folder structure.
Quicksilver
A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.
SketchBox
Sticky Notes Manager for your Mac Desktop.
Slife
Time and activity analytics application that automatically keeps track of where you spend your time on your computer.
SyncMate
Help you keep all your documents, text messages, contacts, calendar entries and events and other stuff well organized.
TaskMate
Simple Mac to-do list application.
Think
Helps you to concentrate on your current task and activity.
Todos
Todos shows you all your applications in a complete dock.
Tools And Utilities
AppFresh
Helps you to keep all applications, widgets, preference panes and application plugins installed on your Mac up to date.
Burn
Mac’s application to burn discs, with a lot of advanced options.
Font Explorer X
Font management tool.
Garagebuy
Help you find and purchase items on eBay.
Set Icon
Small application that lets you quickly and easily set a custom icon for one your drives either from an ICNS file or any old image file that Mac OS supports.
TextWrangler
Powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.
NeoOffice
Full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database programs) for Mac OS X.
Emacs
An Editor for Text, HTML, LaTeX, C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, and more…
Readers
Adobe Reader
Read PDF files with this Adobe Acrobat reader.
NetNewsWire
RSS reader for Mac by NewsGator
NewsFire
A great RSS reader for Mac whom recently made free.
ThunderBird
Powerful email application from Mozilla.
System
AppCleaner
AppCleaner is a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
Caffeine
Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu.
Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone, synchronize, backup. Schedule and forget it.
Deeper
Allows you to enable and disable the hidden functions of Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, Login window and many Apple’s applications.
EverSave
Allows you to save all of your documents in a specific time interval or by changing the frontmost application.
Growl
Growl lets Mac OS X applications unintrusively tell you when things happen.
IStat Pro
Highly configurable widget that lets you monitor every aspect of your Mac, including CPU, memory, disks, network, battery, temperatures, fans, load & uptime and processes.
Loginox
Easily customize your Mac’s login screen.
MacLoc
After clicking on MacLoc, it will appear that you’ve logged out, however upon entering your username and password, all open documents and applications will be right where you left them.
Mactracker
Provides detailed information on every Apple Macintosh computer ever made, including items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions, and expansion options.
OnyX
Allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, run miscellaneous tasks of system maintenance, configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, Login window.
Monolingual
A program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space.
PresentYourApps
Lets you hide the Dock and menu bar for every Cocoa application you choose.
SMARTReporter
Application that can warn you of some hard disk drive failures before they actually happen.
SuperDocker
Tweak your Mac’s dock.
Chat Clients
Adium
Free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more.
Colloquy
Advanced IRC, SILC & ICB client.
Gabtastik
Gabtastik lets you keep chat sessions open on your OS X desktop outside of your regular web browser, using minimal screen real estate and system memory.
Messenger
Think of it as Mac’s MSN Messenger.
System Tool: IFreeMem
Recovers memory for your applications to use and helps avoid the performance hit you get when running low on Free memory.
System Tool: Silver Keeper
Mac’s free backup application with scheduling ability.
Productivity: The Unarchiver
Think of it as WinZIP for Mac. Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, Rar, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more or less obscure formats.
Productivity: Name Mangler
If you need to rename several files at once every now and then, this is the application you have always been looking for.
Reader: Skim
PDF reader for Mac.
Editor: Nvu
‘WYSIWYG’ HTML editor based on Gecko, Mozilla’s rendering engine.
Editor: Smultron
Yet another free text editor for Mac OS X.
Security
ClamXav Main Screen ClamXav
Free open source virus checker for Mac OS X.
Flame
Application that shows you what’s going on behind the scenes on your network.
IP Securitas
IPsec based VPN allowing you to transfer secure data remotely.
Rookit Hunter
Searches for popular UNIX and Mac rootkits and removes them.
Server Admin Tools
Provides information about the Mac OS X Server administration software applications.
Tiger Envelopes
Tiger Envelopes is a little program that lets you read and write email privately.
WireShark
Network protocol analyzer
Audio And Video
Audacity
Free Mac sound editing and recording tool.
Centerstage Project
Handbrake
Open-source DVD to MPEG-4 converter.
IPodDisk
Copy your music from iPod to your Mac, via Finder.
Miro
HD video player, podcast player, torrent downloader, Youtube viewer that can play almost any video file and offers over 6,000 free internet TV shows and video podcasts.
MPlayer
It might not have that appealing interface, but you should know that it actually play more file formats than VNC player.
VLC Player
A favourite Mac video player that supports almost all video formats!
Graphics And Image Publishing
GIMP
You probably won’t need Photoshop if you have this.
Inkscape
Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
IStrip
An application to view and archive comic strips available onlin
Paparazzi!
Makes screenshots of webpages.
PhotoBook
A Facebook photo browser for Mac. It makes it easy and fun to manage, share, and view your friends’ Facebook photos in one intuitive interface.
Xee
Lightweight, fast and convenient image viewer and browser.
Internet And Network Utilities
Cyberduck
Open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Mosso Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac.
Classic FTP
Mac program to upload, download, delete and manage files on a remote server or website using the file transfer protocol.
Camino Browser
Powerful brower that combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the powerful web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine.
Chicken Of The VNC
Yet another VNC client for Mac OS X.
FileZilla
Perhaps one of the most famouse FTP/SFTP around.
Firefox Browser
A no brainer must-have for those who enjoys surfing web with open standards.
Flock
A Social Web Browser
IStumbler
Wireless discovery tool for Mac OS X, providing plugins for finding AirPort networks, Bluetooth devices and Bonjour services with your Mac.
JollysFastVNC
Secure ARD and VNC client.
Juice
Podcast receiver that lets you create your own custom online audio anytime, anywhere.
KissMac
Open-source and free stumbler/scanner application for Mac OS X
MAMP
MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It’s a one-click-install application to setup a PHP webserver.
Remote Desktop Connection
Mac application to quickly, simply and securely connect to Windows-based PCs to access Windows-based files, applications, devices, and networks from your Mac.
Serverskine
Have instant access to all of your web server, domain name, and hosting accounts. Serverskine allows you to keep everything straight in a way that’s intuitive, easy and useful.
SvnX
Allows you to browse your working copies, spot changes and operate on them but also to browse logs and revisions of your repositories !
Transmission
Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client.
Vuze (Azureus)
Powerful torrent meta-search with login support for private trackers.
Skype
System Tool: IFreeMem
Recovers memory for your applications to use and helps avoid the performance hit you get when running low on Free memory.
System Tool: Silver Keeper
Mac’s free backup application with scheduling ability.
Productivity: The Unarchiver
Think of it as WinZIP for Mac. Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, Rar, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more or less obscure formats.
Productivity: Name Mangler
If you need to rename several files at once every now and then, this is the application you have always been looking for.
Reader: Skim
PDF reader for Mac.
Editor: Nvu
‘WYSIWYG’ HTML editor based on Gecko, Mozilla’s rendering engine.
Editor: Smultron
Yet another free text editor for Mac OS X.
Security
ClamXav Main Screen ClamXav
Free open source virus checker for Mac OS X.
Flame
Application that shows you what’s going on behind the scenes on your network.
IP Securitas
IPsec based VPN allowing you to transfer secure data remotely.
Rookit Hunter
Searches for popular UNIX and Mac rootkits and removes them.
Server Admin Tools
Provides information about the Mac OS X Server administration software applications.
Tiger Envelopes
Tiger Envelopes is a little program that lets you read and write email privately.
WireShark
Network protocol analyzer
Audio And Video
Audacity
Free Mac sound editing and recording tool.
Centerstage Project
Handbrake
Open-source DVD to MPEG-4 converter.
IPodDisk
Copy your music from iPod to your Mac, via Finder.
Miro
HD video player, podcast player, torrent downloader, Youtube viewer that can play almost any video file and offers over 6,000 free internet TV shows and video podcasts.
MPlayer
It might not have that appealing interface, but you should know that it actually play more file formats than VNC player.
VLC Player
A favourite Mac video player that supports almost all video formats!
Graphics And Image Publishing
GIMP
You probably won’t need Photoshop if you have this.
Inkscape
Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
IStrip
An application to view and archive comic strips available onlin
Paparazzi!
Makes screenshots of webpages.
PhotoBook
A Facebook photo browser for Mac. It makes it easy and fun to manage, share, and view your friends’ Facebook photos in one intuitive interface.
Xee
Lightweight, fast and convenient image viewer and browser.
Internet And Network Utilities
Cyberduck
Open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Mosso Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac.
Classic FTP
Mac program to upload, download, delete and manage files on a remote server or website using the file transfer protocol.
Camino Browser
Powerful brower that combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the powerful web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine.
Chicken Of The VNC
Yet another VNC client for Mac OS X.
FileZilla
Perhaps one of the most famouse FTP/SFTP around.
Firefox Browser
A no brainer must-have for those who enjoys surfing web with open standards.
Flock
A Social Web Browser
IStumbler
Wireless discovery tool for Mac OS X, providing plugins for finding AirPort networks, Bluetooth devices and Bonjour services with your Mac.
JollysFastVNC
Secure ARD and VNC client.
Juice
Podcast receiver that lets you create your own custom online audio anytime, anywhere.
KissMac
Open-source and free stumbler/scanner application for Mac OS X
MAMP
MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It’s a one-click-install application to setup a PHP webserver.
Remote Desktop Connection
Mac application to quickly, simply and securely connect to Windows-based PCs to access Windows-based files, applications, devices, and networks from your Mac.
Serverskine
Have instant access to all of your web server, domain name, and hosting accounts. Serverskine allows you to keep everything straight in a way that’s intuitive, easy and useful.
SvnX
Allows you to browse your working copies, spot changes and operate on them but also to browse logs and revisions of your repositories !
Transmission
Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client.
Vuze (Azureus)
Powerful torrent meta-search with login support for private trackers.
Skype for Mac.
